252 LIVING SELF-LIGHTED LAMPS. 



spectacle presented by some of the Sertularian Zoo- 

 phytes, in the dark. Other naturalists, as Professor 

 Forbes, Mr. Hassal, and Mr. Landsborough, have 

 observed it before me, and it was the admiration 

 expressed by them at the sight that set me upon 

 witnessing it for myself. I had a frond of Laminaria 

 digitata, on whose smooth surface a populous colony 

 of that delicate zoophyte Laomedea geniculata had 

 established itself. I had put the frond into a vessel 

 of water as it came out of the sea, and the polypes 

 were now in the highest health and vigour in a large 

 vase in my study. After nightfall I Avent into the 

 room, in the dark, and taking a slender stick struck 

 the frond and waved it to and fro. Instantly one and 

 another of the polypes lighted up, lamp after lamp 

 rapidly seemed to catch the flame, until in a second 

 or two every stalk bore several tiny but brilliant stars, 

 while from the regular manner in which the stalks 

 were disposed along the lines of the creeping stem, 

 as before described, (See p. 90 ante), the spectacle bore 

 a resemblance sufficiently striking to the illumination 

 of a city ; or rather to the gas-jets of some figure of 

 a crown or V. R., adorning the house of a loyal citizen 

 on a gala-night ; the more because of the momentary 

 extinction and relighting of the flames here and there, 

 and the manner in which the successive ignition ap- 

 peared to run rapidly from part to part. 



It has been a question whether the luminosity of 

 these polypes is a vital function, or only the result of 

 death and decomposition. I agree with Mr. Hassal 

 in thinking it attendant, if not dependent, upon vita- 

 lity. The colony of Laomedea in the preceding 



